Worldwide Service Chain Leaders Discussed the Future of the Service Chain as a Strategic Profit Center

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - October 12, 2007) - The annual Chief Service Officer's (CSO) Summit hosted by Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks company (NYSE: HHS), took place this week in Boston to outline best-in-class service chain practices and deliver actionable recommendations for service chain leaders worldwide to take back to their organizations for heightened post sales service. This event is seen in the industry as the preeminent networking event for service executives looking to join peers from industry leading companies to discuss how best-in-class companies are making a profit from services. "The valuable discussions at the 2007 CSO Summit were relevant and timely for executives in charge of post sales service and operational excellence. Our on-site discussions with senior executives will help shape the role service organizations play in the complete value chain," said Cindy Jutras, Vice President and Group Director at Aberdeen.

During the summit, on-site polling of the participants captured valuable research surrounding the goals, direction and challenge of those responsible for the success of the service chain at leading companies. A snapshot of the research results from the polling on October 9-10 included the following:

--  51% of delegate companies had revenue of $1B+
--  58% of delegates operate service as a profit center
--  61% of delegates had customer centric business drivers that shaped
    their service strategies
    

Full proceedings from the Chief Service Officer's Summit, as well as the latest research from Aberdeen's service chain practice, will be revealed in the post CSO Summit Webinar on Tuesday, November 6, 2007 1pm -2pm EDT. For more information please visit, http://www.aberdeen.com/events/live/CSO07/default.asp

Some of the leading industry speakers at the summit included: Rich Christensen, VP and Business Information Officer, Best Buy; Brian Daschbach, SVP Integrated Field Service, Baltimore Gas & Electric; Steve Blaz, VP Global Svc Ops, Juniper Networks; Mike Woodward, VP Service Strategy, IKON Office Solutions; Scott Etlinger, SVP Global Service, American Medical Systems; Rusty Walther, SVP Global Support, Network Appliance; Skip Boothby, VP of Service, Celestica; Mark Vigoroso, Chief Service Strategist, Qualcomm; David Dora, EVP of Product Operations, Kawasaki Motors; Michael Treacy, Best Selling Author.

During the proceedings, Aberdeen presented five companies with Service Chain Achievement Awards for excellence demonstrated in 5 specific areas. The award winners were selected solely on our research of the past 12 months. The 2007 Achievement Award Winners were:

Cisco Systems received the Executive Stewardship Award for achieving performance heights due to direct involvement and leadership from executive management. The award was presented to Jim Fuller, Sr. Director Service Supply Chain, Cisco Systems.

Sun Microsystems accepted the Business Evolution Award for managing information flow across internal functional practices to achieve measurable business growth. Ron O'Clair, VP Sun Services GSL Global Logistics Programs was on hand to receive the award.

Abbott Diagnostics won the Innovation in Technology Award for maximizing technology solutions to solve pressing service chain issues to positively impact company performance. Scott Sienko, Global Director was directly responsible for this acknowledgement.

General Binding Corp (GBC) accepted the Performance Excellence Award for harnessing the performance impacts of service chain activities and mastering methodologies for financial, operational, and customer-centric performance excellence. Tim Spencer, VP Technical Services was acknowledged for the award. Sr. Managers Kyle Gibson and Mike Casey were on hand to receive the award.

Columbia Gas Transmission received the Process Excellence Award for demonstrating process ingenuity, agility, flexibility and scalability in addressing changing business requirements. The award will be sent to Joseph Kopalek, Sr. Operations Manager.

Congratulations to the award winners for their excellence in the service chain arena.

Look for Aberdeen's CSO Summit to be a staple in the service industry as senior service, finance, supply chain, and operations executives seek to accelerate strategies for post-sales service transformation.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.

© 2007 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
260 Franklin Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02110-3112
Telephone: (617) 723-7890
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com

Contact Information: Media Contact: Cindy Jutras Aberdeen Harte-Hanks (617)854-5247 cindy.jutras@aberdeen.com